October 15 (SeeNews) - Croatia's Erste&Steiermarkische Bank said it will distribute a dividend of 9.48 kuna ($1.5/1.3 euro) per share, or 161 million kuna overall, out of its net profit of 389.5 million kuna for 2020.
The bank's supervisory board approved the dividend distribution after Croatia's central bank said it will withdraw as of October 1, 2021 its earlier decision to temporarily limit distribution of bank profits, Erste said in filing to the Zagreb bourse on Thursday.
Last year, Erste said it planned to distribute as dividend an overall 227 million kuna, or 13.37 kuna per share, out of its 752.5 million kuna net profit reported for 2019 but abandoned the plan in order to comply with the central bank's decision prompted by the coronavirus outbreak.
In March 2020 Croatia's central bank barred local lenders from distributing dividend as part of broader measures aimed to ensure that the liquidity of the banking system will support the domestic economy amidst the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
In 2019, Erste&Steiermaerkische Bank distributed as dividend a total of 288.7 million kuna of its 2018 net profit of 829.7 million kuna, or 17 kuna per share.
The lender is a unit of Austria's Erste Group.
(1 euro = 7.507 kuna)
Erste&Steiermaerkische Bank d.d. is among the biggest banks in SEE. You can download our SEE Top 100 ranking
here or subscribe to our free Top 100 newsletter
here